President Obama: the Middle East press responds

Here's a quick look at how the press in the Middle East — arguably the region likely to be most affected by yesterday's U.S. election — interpreted the news that Barrack Obama is on his way to the White House:

“No declaration of support and no promising statements can diminish the fear many Israelis' have of U.S president-elect Barak Obama … . [Some Israelis] identify Obama, black and bearing Hussein as a middle name, as a supporter of the oppressed in Third World countries, and fear that he will automatically side with the Palestinians.” — Aluf Benn, columnist in Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

“Exit polls: 78 per cent of Jews voted for Obama” — headline in the Jerusalem Post.

“[President-elect Obama's] political charisma, eloquence, and sharp intuitive intelligence would not have been the sole factors that led to his victory, and to him becoming the leader of the world's strongest power — in fact, the leader of the entire world. In fact, his victory will have been the outcome of the crushing defeat the Arabs and Muslims have inflicted on the former U.S. administration, stirring hatred against it from its own citizens first, but from the entire world as well” — Abdelbari Atwan, writing in the pan-Arab al-Quds al-Arabi.

“Black Kennedy to White House” — headline in Lebanon's al-Akhbar newspaper, which is considered pro-Hezbollah

“Public opinion in Iran and the Middle East believes that Obama and McCain are two faces of the same coin. The victory of either won't have the least impact on the situation of these countries. In other words a yellow dog is a jackal's brother [Iranian proverb meaning cut from the same cloth].” — editorial in Iran's hardline Hezbollah newspaper

“Why did the Obama wave explode? Because he represents what is ‘new.' Because he captures the ‘spirit of the times.' Because he provides hope for ‘change.' Because he captures the imagination of ‘youth.' Because he can be trusted as a leader. We hope that Barack Obama will make history in the White House, and will not disappoint our hopes for change and ‘revolution.'” — Hasan Cemal, writing in Turkey's centrist Milliyet newspaper.

“No matter who wins US vote, hope remains for peace” — headline in the Jordan Times.

“Everyone knows that the period of U.S. foolishness is over” — headline in Syria's state-run Tishreen newspaper.

Middle East Electoral College: final results

Amman, Jordan – Wednesday, Nov. 5

“Mabruk!” the purple-uniformed bellboy shouted at me across the lobby of the Hyatt hotel. “Congratulations!”

To tell him that I wasn't American, and therefore not responsible in any way for electing Barrack Obama yesterday, would have ruined the moment. All day today, Jordanians from all walks of life, as well as some of the Iraqi and Palestinian refugees who now live here, expressed their delight that the United States had chosen – as they see it – to end eight years of confrontation between the West and the Muslim world and to elect someone who appears to be the complete opposite of George W. Bush.

Despite warm ties between Bush and Jordan's King Abdullah II, the last eight years have been unkind to this desert kingdom, which had long been an oasis of calm and stability in a turbulent region. Bush's decision to launch the 2003 invasion of neighbouring Iraq – quietly supported by the Jordanian government – has since driven some 750,000 Iraqis into refuge in Jordan.

The violence tearing Iraq apart spilled over the border in November 2005 when suicide bombers dispatched by the Jordanian-born head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, attacked three hotels on the same night, killing 60 people and targeting the country's vital tourism industry. (The Hyatt hotel was one of those attacked that night. Staying here remains a bit eerie despite the completely refurbished lobby.)

And all that is in addition to the estimated 1.7 million Palestinian refugees (a low-ball estimate) who have lived here for decades. King Abdullah publicly backed both President Bush's failed “road map” to Middle East peace (which was supposed to deliver a Palestinian state by 2005) and the stalled Annapolis peace process that was launched last year. No progress has been made, and the Palestinian refugee population in Jordan continues to grow.

So it's little surprise that Jordanians are as happy to see the end of the Bush era as anyone else in the Middle East. Here's a sampling of what I heard today as I toured Amman, as well as a nearby Palestinian refugee camp and al-Zarqawi's hometown of Zarqa. Only one woman told me that she had hoped to see McCain win, and she said that was because she hated America and “wanted the worst for them.”

“In the Middle East, everybody is happy today. They wanted to see someone different for from Bush and people saw Senator McCain as an extension of Bush. It's not so much for Obama as against an extension for Bush.”

-Adnan Abu Odeh, former head of the royal court under King Abdullah II's father, King Hussein.

“Obama will bring change, God willing.”

– Jawat Barghouti, a Texan-Palestinian-Jordanian who said he voted for the new president-elect.

“I'm very happy. God willing he will be good for us, for the Palestinian cause. Bush ruined all the world.”

- Mohammed al-Ayyan, 62-year-old tailor in the Hitteen Palestinian refugee camp near Zarqa.

“We have problems no matter who is president. God willing (Obama) will be better if he follows what he say.”

- Umm Karam, 60-year-old grandmother in Hitteen refugee camp.

“We don't need Obama or McCain. We just need America to leave us alone.”

– Mohammed, taxi driver in Amman.

So give Jordan and the final 34 seats to Obama, giving him an even more convincing win in our little Middle East Electoral College than he achieved in the real one in the United States.

Barack Obama (Dem.) — 475 votes
John McCain (Rep.) — 65 votes

Why such a wide margin? Well, outside of Israel (where people are worried that a President Obama will be less supportive of the Jewish state and pressure it into accepting a peace deal that includes giving up most of the occupied West Bank) and Iraqi Kurdistan (where Kurds are worried that a hasty withdrawal from Iraq will plunge the country into a civil war that they will not be able to stay out of), Middle Easterners are simply tired of the war and tumult that have marked the Bush years.

Syrians and Iranians are hoping that a President Obama will deliver on his promises to use dialogue instead of force and to meet with those that the Bush Administration ostracized as enemies. Turks want to see an end to the chaos that has spilled over Iraq's borders into their own.

Palestinians and other Arabs are hoping – just as Israel fears – that Obama will be a more neutral arbiter than the openly pro-Israeli President Bush. I repeatedly heard that “war on terror” can't be won unless the U.S. president, whoever that happens to be, first brings an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which a wide majority of Middle Easterners see as the chief cause of Muslim radicalism.

In other words, the expectations in this battered region could scarcely be any higher, or more difficult to fulfill. But if and when the new president-elect heads down his own “Road to Jerusalem,” he'll begin his journey with all the goodwill he needs.

Middle East Electoral College: Syria results

Damascus, Syria – Tuesday, Nov. 4

The polls have just open across the United States, but they're vote has long been decided in Syria, where Barrack Obama has unsurprisingly won another clear victory in our unscientific little survey of how Middle East voters feel.

Asking Syrians their opinion about politics is like walking around the Vatican asking who's gay. Most people just blush and walk away when you bring up the topic.

That said, a few Syrians did open up and share their opinions, usually when they were in situations where they could be certain that no one was listening. All who did talk frankly with me said they either supported Obama or none of the above. Not one wanted to see a McCain victory, for the same reason I've heard elsewhere in the Arab world — he's seen as more likely to continue the reviled policies of George W. Bush.

Here's a sampling of what I heard:

"I think Obama is better, but America's policy to Syria will not change no matter who is president."

— Rami, 35, bartender working at a resort in the coastal town of Lattakia.

“People here believe Obama has an inclination to use diplomacy instead of military force. He likes to talk rather than flex his muscles, and I think we need to talk rather than fight.”

— Marwan Kabalan, political scientist at the University of Damascus.

"We support whichever person will help us get back Golan"

— Georges Salim Attoun, gold seller in the old city of Damascus, referring to the strategic Golan Heights area that Israel has occupied since a 1967 war.

"You can see from their faces which one is better. Obama has a better smile, a better personality."

— Sarah, 23, waitress and model based in Damascus.

"Obama or McCain? Bashar Assad!"

— nearly everyone else I asked.

So we colour Syria blue and award Obama 98 more seats in the electoral college, adding to his already wide margin of victory over McCain.

Barack Obama (Dem.) — 441 votes
John McCain (Rep.) — 65 votes

Jordan, which has 34 seats in our electoral college, will be the last to vote. Look for the final results here tomorrow, as well as perhaps a little analysis of what I've heard across this region about Bush, Obama and McCain since my journey began back on Oct. 8.

Middle East Electoral College: Lebanon results

Zahlé, Lebanon – Sunday, Nov. 2, 2008

Barrack Obama's sweep of the real battleground states continues.

In Lebanon, as in Turkey, George W. Bush achieved the rare feat of unifying the country's quarrelling political factions around their disdain for him and his policies of the past eight years.

The militant Shia Hezbollah movement and its allies hate Bush for his open and unblinking support of Israel, particularly during the 2006 war during which the Israeli military laid waste to much of South Lebanon. When the war was over, Hezbollah supporters hung "Made in the USA" banners over destroyed apartment blocks and mocked claims by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the war had been part of process to bring about a "new Middle East."

That Hassan Nasrallah's followers aren't fans of the Bush Administration is hardly surprising. Far more damning is the hurt disappointment of the country's pro-Western groups, who feel the U.S. abandoned them during and after the war, even though the White House had initially held up the 2005 Cedar Revolution here as proof that "freedom" was indeed spreading in the region.

Here's a sampling of what I heard during my journeys from Tripoli to Byblos to Beirut to Baalbek:

"Obama hates war. Bush wants war against the Muslims and the Arabs and I think McCain will be like Bush."

– Bilal Ramadan, 21-year-old science student. An Allawite Shiite, he lives in the northern city of Tripoli.

"I don't think Obama will be racist in his policies. Black people are not biased towards Israel."

– Khodor Kamaleddin, taxi driver. Works outside the Commodore Hotel in Hamra, a Sunni Muslim neighbourhood of Beirut.

"I like the black one. I like what he is saying. The other one is like Bush, his policies are very bad."

– Wafa Darwish, a 40-year-old schoolteacher from the northern town of Qalmoun.

"Obama is better because he will sympathize with the Arab people and our causes. We hope that this is not just advertising."

– Bilal Bayan, 36-year-old shopkeeper in the Hezbollah-dominated tourist city of Baalbek.

"I am disappointed in both candidates. They are avoiding the big issue, which is the question of Palestine."

– Ahmed Fatfat, MP and former cabinet minister in the pro-Western Future Party.

Out of nearly two dozen Lebanese that I asked about the U.S. elections, only two said they favoured John McCain. So Obama sweeps Lebanon and its 21 electors, widening his already impressive lead in the race:

Barack Obama (Dem.) – 343 votes

John McCain (Rep.) – 65 votes

Obama already clinched the Middle East Electoral College back when he won Turkey, but Jordan and Syria still haven't had their say. Results from both countries should be in by the time polls close in the United States on Tuesday, so stay tuned.

Obama wins Turkey, clinches Middle East Electoral College

After eight years of being caught in the backdraft of U.S. President George W. Bush's policies, the people of Turkey are angry. Religious Turks are angry about the Iraq war, which Turkey opposed from the start, and about the ever-expanding "war on terrorism," which many here view as a war on Islam.

Despite those perceptions, the Bush Administration was actually a staunch backer of Prime Minster Recep Tayyep Erdogan and his mildly Islamist AK Party, lending support to the government a constitutional crisis in Turkey this year and backing its bid to join the European Union. That disappointed secular Turks, who hoped that the hawkish U.S. administration would understand their fears of the creeping Islamicization of life in Turkey.

And while Kurds in Iraq love Bush (and his father) for bringing down Saddam Hussein and letting loose the genie of Kurdish autonomy, Turkey's Kurds see only a double-standard. The Bush Administration deployed its troops alongside Kurdish militias during the war in Iraq, and has been supporting Iranian Kurdish groups seeking to undermine the regime Tehran. But the PKK, the group fighting for the independence of Turkey's Kurds, was labeled a "terrorist" organization for the first time by the Bush Administration.

In short, Bush managed to offend Turks of all political stripes during his eight years in the White House. As a result, if Turks could cast ballots in the looming U.S. election, they'd vote almost unanimously for change in Washington. And unfortunately for John McCain, they don't buy his maverick schtick. Change, to Turks, means Barrack Obama in the White House.

It was a landslide. Other than a few people who professed to have no opinion about U.S. politics, every single one of the 20-some Turks I asked said that they'd vote for Obama if they could. Not one Turk I spoke to picked McCain.

By and large, Turks think fondly of the Bill Clinton era, and hope that the return of a Democrat to the White House might mean a return to the less confrontational U.S. foreign policy of that era.

Here's a sampling of what I heard:

"[Obama] is an intellectual, and he has new ideas. McCain comes from the same party as Bush – and we don't need to see any more wars."

– Baris Kuyucu, 33, Gaziantep resident and sports anchor on the CNN Turk television channel.

"When you ask people about George Bush, the first thing they think of is the Iraq war, and the second thing is his relationship with the [Turkish] government and his putting the PKK on the terrorist list."

– Angel Ugar, 23-year-old translator and mother of one.

"Kurds in Turkey have the same problems as black people in the U.S. Because of this, we hope that Obama will understand our situation."

– Abdullah Demirbash, 42-year-old Kurdish politician and the former mayor of the old city of Diyarbakir.

"Black people have suffered a lot in their past. God brought this black person to the biggest country in the world so that maybe he can bring justice to the world."

– Sait Sanli, 64, the "Peace Father" of Diyarbakir. Has eight children of his own

"Obama knows about Muslims, and he has a nice smile."

– Abdul Kerim, a 32-year-old barber and father of three living in the city of Sanliurfa.

So, after mixed results up to now, Obama cleanly sweeps Turkey and the 175 votes I awarded the country in our makeshift electoral college. That means that even though Syria, Lebanon and Jordan have yet to be polled, the Democratic candidate has already passed the magic number of 270 needed to clinch victory in our little "election."

Barack Obama (Dem.) – 322 votes

John McCain (Rep.) – 65 votes

Undaunted, we'll press on, just to make sure Syrians, Lebanese and Jordanians have their say too. But I think I can already guess what many of them will say.

As Timur Schindel, the Turkish-American who owns the fantastic Anadolu Evleri hotel in historic Gaziantep, told me, "Everybody accepts now that the past eight years have been a disaster."

The Middle East Electoral College: Iraq results

So colour Iraq neither red nor blue. Or rather, colour it either, depending on what part of the country you're talking about.

During the course the week I spent in Northern Iraq, I asked more than two dozen Iraqis whether they'd prefer to see John McCain or Barrack Obama win the White House on Nov. 4.

The results were split almost perfectly down the middle. Most Kurds preferred McCain, seeing him as more likely to support their dream of independence and less likely to withdraw American troops from the country. Kurds, who actually speak with affection of George W. Bush, fear that a U.S. withdrawal would plunge the country into a new civil war that they could not stay out of.

The Arabs I met, however, were more likely to support Obama, believing that he is more likely to adopt different policies than Bush, the man they blame for destroying this country.

Here's a taste of what some of the Iraqis I spoke to had to say on this question:

“We cannot ask the U.S. troops to leave because that will lead to civil war… . Obama's policy is a rapid withdrawal of American troops. This will not benefit the Iraqi people in general.”

– Rahman Gharib, 42, a journalist affiliated with the Communist Party of Kurdistan.

“I prefer the black one. He will pay more attention to the situation in Iraq.”

– Walid Chiad, 42, an Arab refugee from Baghdad currently living in Kirkuk.

“I think America needs some change. People get sick and tired of a style, a face or a colour.”

– Father Sabri al-Maqdessy, priest at St. Joseph's Church in Ainkawa.

A third opinion which was shared by Arabs and Kurds alike is that it won't make much difference who wins and that Iraq will suffer under either man's leadership.

“Bush destroyed Iraq. He took our oil and gave us nothing in return,” said Ayyad Manfi, the mukhtar, or leader, of a refugee camp near Sulaymaniyah for former Baghdad residents. “We don't believe in this election. Whatever they say, they will change their promises later.”

So, how to award Iraq's 146 electors? My poll was obviously skewed by the fact I was in the Kurdish north of the country. The Arab refugees I spoke to were also uniformly Sunni, meaning this already unscientific poll takes almost no account of the feelings of the country's largest community, the Shiites.

The good news is that not every U.S. state is winner-take-all – and you could argue that Iraq is hardly one country anymore – so I'm doling out the electors based on the most obvious line: McCain has won Iraqi Kurdistan, Obama takes Sunni and Shia Iraq (the latter judgment based on the fact Shia leaders have been nearly unanimous in calling for a speedy U.S. withdrawal from the country, which is closest to Obama's policy). Kurds make up roughly 20 per cent of Iraq's population, so McCain gets 20 per cent of the votes, or 29 electors. Obama gets the remaining 117.

Arbitrary? Perhaps. But I'm the one battling to hold my insides in after eating at an Iraqi roadside diner and spending sleepless nights at the Simpan Hotel, so I get to make the call. You're at home surfing the Internet during a commercial break in Hockey Night in Canada, so you just get to complain about it in the comments section below.

Our running total now shows Obama surging from behind to take the lead:


Barack Obama (Dem.) – 147 votes
John McCain (Rep.) – 65 votes

Next up, Turkey, which has a dominant 175 votes in the 538-seat electoral college.

If Obama wins it, he'll shoot past the 270 mark needed to secure victory, meaning my little polling project could effectively be over long before election day. If McCain wins it, we've got a race to the wire, with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan deciding who takes the prize.

Follow the race at The Globe and Mail website.

Forty-eight hours in Iraq

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq – Tuesday, October 21

Iraq, unquestionably, is a safer place now than it was a year or 18 months ago, when the worst of the inter-communal fighting was raging. But what does “safer” mean in the Iraqi context?

To give you an idea, I thought I’d resurrect a feature from the blog I did during my last visit to Iraq, and treat you to a short summary of the violence around the country in the 48 hours since I’ve arrived in this comparatively calm corner of it.

While most of the shootings and explosion are considered to minor for the media to report on anymore, the overall picture is far from pretty. Even though the main Sunni and Shia militias are largely holding their fire for now, this is still arguably the most dangerous country on earth, with the northern city of Mosul (which has a mixed Sunni Arab and Kurdish population) now rivaling Baghdad as the centre of the chaos.

(The incidents were not confirmed by me. The reports are courtesy of the folks at Iraq Today and McClatchy newspapers)

Today (as of 6 p.m. local):

- Three electricity workers and an Iraqi army soldier were wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in eastern Baghdad.
- A bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in eastern Baghdad, wounding two civilians, Iraqi police said.
- Fifteen people were killed and 40 others were injured in fierce clashes that erupted overnight and continued sporadically till noon in an area southwest of Iraq. The deadly clashes occurred when people from the city of Ramadi, capital of western Anbar province, attacked people from Babel province near the Jurf al-Sakhar area, some 60 km southwest of Baghdad. The battle erupted due to a dispute between the two sides over the ownership of farmland.
- Gunmen blew up a drinking water station east of the district of al-Dalouiya, near the Tigris River.
- Clashes broke out between armed gunmen and Iraqi army soldiers in the al-Siddiq neighborhood in the east of Mosul.

Yesterday:

- A roadside bomb struck a double-decker bus in eastern Baghdad, killing two people and injuring seven. Iraqi police and hospital officials said the bus was carrying employees of Iraq's Housing Ministry through the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Mashtal when the blast occurred.
- Nine decomposed bodies were found in Latifiya, 40 km south of Baghdad, police said. The victims had been buried for more than a year.
- The Iraqi army killed two militants and arrested 51 others on Sunday in different areas across Iraq, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
- A roadside bomb planted near a school for girls in central Baghdad.
- A bomb placed under a taxi exploded at Maysaloun Square in east Baghdad, police said. Police and health officials said two people were killed and two injured.
- A roadside bomb detonated on Palestine Street (east Baghdad) targeting a police patrol. Four people were injured, including a policeman.
- In two separate incidents, individual dead bodies were discovered in eastern Baghdad.
- Three insurgent gunmen were killed near the city of Baquba when an improvised explosive device they were planting exploded.
- Police accidentally shot and killed a civilian during a raid on the town of Muqdadiyah, north east of Baquba.
- Police shot and killed three gunmen during clashes in the town of Mandli, east of Baquba.
- A civilian was killed by a roadside bomb that exploded near his home in the town of Khanaqeen.
- One man was killed and another injured by a roadside bomb that exploded in the northern city Mosul.
- Gunmen assassinated a member of the Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP) in Mosul.
- A sniper shot and killed a policeman in Borsa neighborhood in Mosul.
- Six people, all members of one family, were injured when a roadside bomb exploded near there car in Mosul.

Barrack Obama wants to start withdrawing U.S. soldiers from this country, something those Iraqis I’ve spoken to in the past two days believe will lead to even more violence. But at least that’s a new policy. John McCain thinks America is “winning” something here.

The Middle East Electoral College

Among the questions I’ll be asking people – Iranians, Iraqis, Turks, Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians – as I travel overland across this region over the next three weeks is how they feel about the upcoming presidential election in the United States.

Outside of the U.S. itself, it’s safe to say that the Middle East is the region most affected by this faraway vote that they have absolutely no control over. The George W. Bush era brought them the (failed) Road Map to Israeli-Palestinian peace, the invasion of Iraq, the rise of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in Iran, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the election (and international rejection) of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories, the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and the now-stalled Annapolis peace process. All were considerably affected by the man who sat thousands of kilometres away in the White House.

So what next? Would a President Obama keep his promise to negotiate with Iran, and rapidly reduce the number of American soldiers in Iraq? Would he be a better mediator in the Middle East peace process? Or perhaps a President McCain would be a better pick for Israelis, who fear being pressured into a peace agreement with the Palestinians, or those pro-Western Lebanese who want U.S. support in facing down Hezbollah? Who do Turks, polarized into camps of secularists and Islamists, with the Iraq war lapping at the country’s southeastern fringe, want to see win the election?

To keep track of this project, I’ve come up with a system based on the U.S. Electoral College and its 538 members. I’ve distributed those 538 votes among the eight countries that I’m going to visit, according to their populations. The winner of this completely unscientific exercise will be known by election morning, Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Here’s the breakdown:

Kish Island, Iran – 8 electors
Iraq – 146 electors
Turkey – 175 electors
Syria – 98 electors
Lebanon – 21 electors
Jordan – 34 electors
Israel – 36 electors
Palestinian Authority – 20 electors

A few footnotes: I based Kish’s population on the one million Iranian tourists who visit Kish each year rather than the 16,500 who actually live on the island. I also allocated Turkey only half the electors its population of 70 million should receive, mostly just to keep the election from being decided solely by the Turkish vote.

Some early results are already in. Barack Obama had the support of 100 per cent of the Iranians I met during my week on Kish Island giving him all 12 Electoral College votes from there.

I won’t arrive in Israel or the Palestinian Territories until after the Nov. 4 election, but after living in Jerusalem for the past three-and-a-half years, I feel comfortable awarding the 36 Israeli votes to Senator John McCain. While polls of Israeli opinion on the election have returned mixed results, even the left-wing Haaretz newspaper has concluded that McCain will be better for Israel’s interests than that other guy with the Muslim-sounding middle name.

Similarly, the Palestinian Authority’s 20 Electoral College votes go to Obama for almost the complete opposite reasons. In fact, some Palestinians have gone so far as to run phone banks for Obama, dialing up unsuspecting voters in the U.S. to ask them to vote for Barack.

So, with 16 days to go – and five countries to travel through – before Election Day, the Middle East Electoral College looks like this:

John McCain (Rep.) – 36 votes
Barack Obama (Dem.) – 28 votes

Colour Iran and the Palestinian territories blue, and Israel red.

Next stop, Iraq. Stay tuned.

Why the Kremlin is pulling for Hillary

Who do Russians want to see in the White House? What do the looming changes in leadership, both in Moscow and Washington, likely mean for the increasingly confrontational relatioship between the Kremlin and the West?

Both questions were put to me by an astute and concerned audience in London this week who came out to hear me chat about The New Cold War during a pleasant night at The Gallery in Farringdon. Both issues will again be hotly debated at the Eurasian Media Forum, which begins tomorrow here in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The short answer to the first question is that none of the remaining U.S. presidential contenders are particularly palatable to the Kremlin.

Broadly speaking, most Russians would prefer to see a Democrat in the White House. But neither Hillary Clinton nor Barrack Obama comes without baggage on the Russia front.

Clinton, who would likely win the Russia primary if the world were given a chance to vote, reminds Russians, of course, of her husband Bill's era. While Mr. Clinton was personally popular - his extramarital shenanigans played much better in laissez-faire Russia than they did back home - Russians also harbour resentment at him for the way he ignored Moscow's concerns during the last Kosovo crisis and the 1999 bombing campaign against Serbia.

Ms. Clinton also embarrassed herself when she tried, and failed, repeatedly to remember the name of Russia's president-elect ("Meh, uh, Medevedeva - whatever"). Like presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, Clinton has dismissed Medvedev on the campaign trail as a Putin puppet and been harsh in her condemnation of Russia's sitting president, saying that as a KGB agent, Putin "by definition he doesn’t have a soul."

Harsh words that will hardly serve to defrost relations if Clinton suprises pundits and manages to win the presidency. But to the Kremlin, she's someone they feel they know and understand - thereby easier to deal with than either Barrack Obama or John McCain.

It's not just the Kremlin - an opinion poll conducted in February by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (better known by its Russian acronym, VTsIOM) found that if they were given a chance to vote in the Democratic primary, Russians would choose Clinton over Obama by a nearly five-to-one margin.

Part of that, sadly, can likely be chalked up to rampant racism in Russian society. Very few Russians could fathom a chorniy, a black, being the most powerful person on the planet.

Obama has actually said little about what his Russia policy might be, but we can draw conclusions from the company he's decided to keep. His top Russia advisor is Michael McFaul, a respected Stanford University academic and a harsh critic of both Vladimir Putin and the system of "managed democracy" the Kremlin has installed over the past eight years.

On the other hand, he's called for Russia to be included in NATO as a way of resolving trans-Atlantic tension. On that point, I think he's ahead of his time.

More ominous, to many Russians, is the presence of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's former National Security Advisor, on Obama's foreign policy team. Brzezinski is an Old Cold Warrior who was among the first to call for the West to confront Putin. He also played a key role in both promoting the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (which expensively serves the sole purpose of getting Caspian Sea crude to markets in the West without ever crossing Russian soil) and in rallying diplomatic support for Ukraine's pro-Western Orange Revolution in 2004.

But even the presence of Brzezinski doesn't mean Obama will necessarily abandon his pledge to be a less confrontational U.S. president than the outgoing George W. Bush. In fact, both Democrats have made clear that they favour diplomacy over confrontation when it comes to Russia.

John McCain promises to take the opposite tack. In fact, he's frequently been critical of the Bush Administration for being too soft on Russia.

“I looked into Putin’s eyes, and I saw three things, a “K’ a “G’ and a “B,’” is a line McCain has pulled out more than once during his push for the presidency. It's a pointed jab at Bush's palsy relationship with Putin, and Bush's famous remark after his first meeting with the Russian leader that after looking in Putin's eyes he "got a sense of his soul."

While in the Senate, McCain was the most outspoken U.S. politician in calling for the West to confront Putin and Putinism. He also headed the USAid-funded International Republican Institute at a time when it played a key background role supporting both the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and Ukraine's popular uprising a year later. (That's him in the picture with buddy Joe Lieberman sporting orange scarves during the Orange Revolution. Hillary seems to have forgotten hers. At least she's not wearing blue...)

McCain, who has called for Russia to be expelled from the G-8, was charateristically harsh after Medvedev handily won the March 2 presidential elections:

"In an election that was uncontested, where opposition candidates were either suppressed or arrested, where the result was foreordained by the manipulations of a corrupt and undemocratic regime, the one thing that was never in doubt was the result. It is a tragedy of history that at this moment, when the democratic tide has reached more nations than ever before, the Russian people be again deprived of the opportunity to choose their leaders in a free and open contest," McCain said in the statement.

"It is obviously an election that did not pass the smell test … These elections were clearly rigged."

Can't argue with much of that. But you have to wonder how that first McCain-Medvedev summit would go. The Moscow News suggests that a McCain presidency would mean "the end of U.S.-Russian diplomatic niceties."

(As an aside, McCain's speechwriter is Robert Kagan, one of the architects of the argument for invading Iraq. How do these people manage to stick around after being so monumentally, disastrously, wrong?)

So the Kremlin, if it had a ballot, would vote for Hillary, and would take Obama over McCain.

The other side of the equation, of course, is Medvedev. What kind of president would he be, and how might he alter the course of Russian-American relations?

Analyst Andrei Piontkovsky, who I have a lot of respect for, believes that the fact Medvedev was chosen to succeed Putin over the more hawkish Sergei Ivanov, means that "we have reached the end of the latest negative confrontational cycle."

I'm less sure. It seems to me that Putin - who in addition to becoming Medvedev's prime minister has "agreed" to take over the leadership of the United Russia party - has now made it abundantly clear that he will remain the real authority. Medvedev's reported pro-Western bent will mean nothing if Putin and the siloviki are maintaining control of foreign and defense policy as the Vedomosti newspaper recently speculated.

Gleb Pavlovsky, who as one of the architects of managed democracy is in a position to know, suggested that the new Russian power system will be a trifecta of the presidency, the parliament and the cabinet of ministers. I don't think it escaped him that Putin controls two of those three power centres to Medvedev's one.

So the odds are that, no matter who wins the White House, we'll see the same escalating confrontationalism that has marked the past eight years.

Incidentally, I'm sharing the stage with both Brzezinski and Pavlovsky tomorrow morning at the Eurasian Media Forum. I'll let you know if I get a word in edgewise...